Police Car Stolen By Dillinger Highlights Weekend Fest
September 12, 2021 at 9:19 p.m.
Police Car Stolen By Dillinger Highlights Weekend Fest
By David [email protected]
The car arrived to the two-day event at 10 a.m. Saturday by a small parade escort, with owner Mark Love behind the wheel and Kosciusko County Sheriff Kyle Dukes in the passenger seat.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer gave some opening remarks to kick off the festival, after an introduction by Museum Co-Director Greg Steffe.
“We, obviously, are very, very excited today to have a very unique piece of American history here in our community,” Steffe said. “This is the actual 1933 Ford V8 that John Dillinger stole when he escaped from Lake County Jail in Crown Point after duping the guards with a pistol carved from a piece of wooden washboard. And this was the personal car of Sheriff Lillian Holley.”
He said the car was brought to Warsaw by Love, of Phoenix, Ariz., who is a Dillinger collector.
“He has made a very, very diligent crusade to saving this automobile for history and we’re very grateful for him making it possible for the car to be here today,” Steffe said.
He thanked a number of people and county and city departments for making the Raid and car’s appearance possible before passing the microphone over to Thallemer.
Following a brief pause to remember the 20th anniversary Saturday of 9/11, Thallemer talked a little about Dillinger’s ties to Warsaw, tying them in with Dillinger’s breakout from the Lake County Jail and eventual demise in Chicago in 1934.
“Eighty-seven years ago, on April 13, 1934, the infamous John Dillinger, a lawless thug from Mooresville, Ind., along with a few of his bullies, decided to visit Warsaw to pick up a few items as part of a wild and notorious crime spree,” Thallemer said. “You see, in addition to stolen cash from 24 bank robberies in Indiana and across the Midwest, Dillinger had this bad habit of taking things that didn’t really belong to him.”
Just after midnight April 13, 1934, Warsaw Police Department officer Jud Pittenger was patrolling downtown on foot – about a block away from where the Old Jail Museum is now – when he was jumped and mugged by the Dillinger gang. After being pistol-whipped a few times, Thallemer said, Pittenger was accompanied back to the police station and forced to open the gun safe. Two pistols and three bulletproof vests were stolen from the second-floor office.
Dillinger and his men jumped in their getaway car and traveled north on Indiana Street.
Three months after visiting Warsaw, Dillinger and his mob were gunned down by federal agents in Chicago in July 1934, Thallemer said.
“Today, on behalf of the Kosciusko Historical Society, it is an honor to welcome you to Dillinger Days,” Thallemer said.
One month prior to Dillinger’s visit to Warsaw, on March 3, 1934, Dillinger made his escape from the Lake County Jail, stealing Holley’s car, which has been restored and was on display in Warsaw.
“It caused quite a ruckus in Lake County because the jail supposedly was escape-proof and the getaway car was Lake County Sheriff Lillian Holley’s car,” Thallemer said, noting that Holley may have been the first female sheriff in the country, fulfilling her husband’s term as he was killed in the line of duty.
The car was eventually abandoned in Chicago.
Holley died June 15, 1994, at the age of 103.
After thanking the many sponsors for the festival, Thallemer encouraged anyone who wasn’t a member of the Kosciusko County Historical Society to join. For an annual fee of $25, a person can receive a membership and quarterly publications of The Thaddeus.
In a brief interview after the ceremony, Love said he owned the 1933 Ford for almost five years. It took him just about the entire five years he’s owned it to restore it.
Love said he only takes it out for special events. Most of the time, it stays inside.
“My dad, before he passed away, he was the largest John Dillinger collector in the world,” he said “Anything you’ve seen in Indiana, it morphs that by at least three times.”
In restoring the car, Love said there had been many photos taken of it and he had a lot of documentation on it from the city. He even has – from the very beginning – all the minutes from the city meetings when they were talking about purchasing the car.
“I have extreme and intense documentation on this car, from front to back,” he said.
As of Saturday, the car has just a little over 36,000 miles on it. The top speed is 80 mph, but Love said he hasn’t pushed it that fast.
“The very first time it was ever seen – nobody knew it even existed until we brought it at Crown Point on April 13, on Easter (this year). So this is only the second time the general public has even seen this car,” Love said.
The car spent most of its existence in Maine. The man who had it beforehand had moved from Chicago to Wisconsin to Maine. It took Love almost 10 years to track the car down.
When Love first got it, he said the condition was “bad. It was rotted really bad.” Most of the car is original, but some had to be restored because it was unsaveable.
Love has many rare Dillinger items in his collection.
“When McCoy took the mold of John Dillinger’s face, when he was killed, that mold – when he took it off – they made two molds of that, of the very first one, and then they broke it. McCoy kept one of them, and they sent the other one to J. Edgar Hoover. And I have the other one. The only other one in the world is in Washington, D.C., in J. Edgar Hoover’s office,” Love said.
The weekend festival also included tours of downtown Warsaw, highlighting Dillinger’s presence in Warsaw; tours of the Old Jail Museum; craft and food vendors and children’s games.
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The car arrived to the two-day event at 10 a.m. Saturday by a small parade escort, with owner Mark Love behind the wheel and Kosciusko County Sheriff Kyle Dukes in the passenger seat.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer gave some opening remarks to kick off the festival, after an introduction by Museum Co-Director Greg Steffe.
“We, obviously, are very, very excited today to have a very unique piece of American history here in our community,” Steffe said. “This is the actual 1933 Ford V8 that John Dillinger stole when he escaped from Lake County Jail in Crown Point after duping the guards with a pistol carved from a piece of wooden washboard. And this was the personal car of Sheriff Lillian Holley.”
He said the car was brought to Warsaw by Love, of Phoenix, Ariz., who is a Dillinger collector.
“He has made a very, very diligent crusade to saving this automobile for history and we’re very grateful for him making it possible for the car to be here today,” Steffe said.
He thanked a number of people and county and city departments for making the Raid and car’s appearance possible before passing the microphone over to Thallemer.
Following a brief pause to remember the 20th anniversary Saturday of 9/11, Thallemer talked a little about Dillinger’s ties to Warsaw, tying them in with Dillinger’s breakout from the Lake County Jail and eventual demise in Chicago in 1934.
“Eighty-seven years ago, on April 13, 1934, the infamous John Dillinger, a lawless thug from Mooresville, Ind., along with a few of his bullies, decided to visit Warsaw to pick up a few items as part of a wild and notorious crime spree,” Thallemer said. “You see, in addition to stolen cash from 24 bank robberies in Indiana and across the Midwest, Dillinger had this bad habit of taking things that didn’t really belong to him.”
Just after midnight April 13, 1934, Warsaw Police Department officer Jud Pittenger was patrolling downtown on foot – about a block away from where the Old Jail Museum is now – when he was jumped and mugged by the Dillinger gang. After being pistol-whipped a few times, Thallemer said, Pittenger was accompanied back to the police station and forced to open the gun safe. Two pistols and three bulletproof vests were stolen from the second-floor office.
Dillinger and his men jumped in their getaway car and traveled north on Indiana Street.
Three months after visiting Warsaw, Dillinger and his mob were gunned down by federal agents in Chicago in July 1934, Thallemer said.
“Today, on behalf of the Kosciusko Historical Society, it is an honor to welcome you to Dillinger Days,” Thallemer said.
One month prior to Dillinger’s visit to Warsaw, on March 3, 1934, Dillinger made his escape from the Lake County Jail, stealing Holley’s car, which has been restored and was on display in Warsaw.
“It caused quite a ruckus in Lake County because the jail supposedly was escape-proof and the getaway car was Lake County Sheriff Lillian Holley’s car,” Thallemer said, noting that Holley may have been the first female sheriff in the country, fulfilling her husband’s term as he was killed in the line of duty.
The car was eventually abandoned in Chicago.
Holley died June 15, 1994, at the age of 103.
After thanking the many sponsors for the festival, Thallemer encouraged anyone who wasn’t a member of the Kosciusko County Historical Society to join. For an annual fee of $25, a person can receive a membership and quarterly publications of The Thaddeus.
In a brief interview after the ceremony, Love said he owned the 1933 Ford for almost five years. It took him just about the entire five years he’s owned it to restore it.
Love said he only takes it out for special events. Most of the time, it stays inside.
“My dad, before he passed away, he was the largest John Dillinger collector in the world,” he said “Anything you’ve seen in Indiana, it morphs that by at least three times.”
In restoring the car, Love said there had been many photos taken of it and he had a lot of documentation on it from the city. He even has – from the very beginning – all the minutes from the city meetings when they were talking about purchasing the car.
“I have extreme and intense documentation on this car, from front to back,” he said.
As of Saturday, the car has just a little over 36,000 miles on it. The top speed is 80 mph, but Love said he hasn’t pushed it that fast.
“The very first time it was ever seen – nobody knew it even existed until we brought it at Crown Point on April 13, on Easter (this year). So this is only the second time the general public has even seen this car,” Love said.
The car spent most of its existence in Maine. The man who had it beforehand had moved from Chicago to Wisconsin to Maine. It took Love almost 10 years to track the car down.
When Love first got it, he said the condition was “bad. It was rotted really bad.” Most of the car is original, but some had to be restored because it was unsaveable.
Love has many rare Dillinger items in his collection.
“When McCoy took the mold of John Dillinger’s face, when he was killed, that mold – when he took it off – they made two molds of that, of the very first one, and then they broke it. McCoy kept one of them, and they sent the other one to J. Edgar Hoover. And I have the other one. The only other one in the world is in Washington, D.C., in J. Edgar Hoover’s office,” Love said.
The weekend festival also included tours of downtown Warsaw, highlighting Dillinger’s presence in Warsaw; tours of the Old Jail Museum; craft and food vendors and children’s games.
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